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I should have listened to…

AT&T Wireless is requiring customers in parts of California and New York and elsewhere to “upgrade” their phones and offering free replacements. The catch? In most cases the upgrades have worse features than the phones they’re replacing.

Slashdot is completely correct. The replacement phones are inferior.

I recently swapped my Nokia 3650 cell phone for a newer, supposed next generation cell phone, the Nokia 3200. As it turned out, compared to the Nokia 3650, the 3200 has a smaller screen, poorer audio, worse reception, and the photos are much poorer quality – a mere 10k vs. 40k for the Nokia 3650.

What’s more, and here’s where it gets completely absurd, the phone does not appear capable of actually emailing a photo! Oh yes, after going through the (highly convoluted) process of attaching a photo to the email and sending it, it acts like it sent the email. Yet the email is never seen again, certainly not by the recipient.

I spent over an hour on the phone with AT&T tech support on two calls, no one had a clue why it couldn’t send photos. Rather than waste more time with this phone, I returned it and got my old phone back. The clerk wasn’t even slightly surprised, I suspect they’re getting many, many such returns.

Do not take the AT&T offer. Wait. They’ll be forced to offer better phones. Or I and many others will go elsewhere.